I seem to spend the majority of my game time trying to judge how to create steps in the ground so that resources can be mined/collected. Also playing cleanup from cave Ins. If this is by design than I understand, but it gets tedious after a while. Perhaps Rogues could have a 'Grappling Hook' that will allow them to move up or down 2 tiles elevations? I know it is asking a lot, but it would be even better if they could use this ability to rescue creatures that are stuck up to 2 tiles up/down.

I think that would be kinda cool if it was limited to Rouges as some unique ability. The other way to get around this would be to allow ladders to be built from the top down as well. I think that option was brought up elsewhere here too.